Inspection

After working in Los Angeles for a week, Jim flew home on the red eye for the anticipated house inspection. Peter has also had a busy week, so our boys relaxed with a little coffee before heading over to the property. Mike, the inspector, was already on the roof when we got there and for the next 3 hours we scraped, sniffed and dug around to see what the condition would be. Mike's final report...

This is an above average quality 100+ year old (approximate age) home. As with all homes, ongoing maintenance is required and improvements to the systems of the home will be needed over time. The improvements that are recommended in this report are not considered unusual for a home of this age and location. Please remember that there is no such thing as a perfect home.

so we signed the final agreement and now begin the mortgage paperwork. there is one change that the seller needs to take care of, the property needs a new septic system, but he has said that this will be done before closing, around April 30th.

After leaving the agents office we stopped at a couple garage/estate/tag sales, where we stopped looking at small pieces of decorative silver and started looking at tools. We bought a hoe(with it's original Montgomery Ward's tag), a good shovel and a small saw.

We took a nice walk around the property, almost 7 acres, pretty undeveloped, so lots of work and lots of opportunity. We are looking forward to the closing so we can post more internal pictures and before and after shots. For now we will document the process of buying and waiting.

Pitured above is, from left to right, the pond, the barn, stable and tack room. This view is from the porch of the house.

Registering

Peter and Jim spent a good chunk of the weekend registering for the upcoming wedding/housewarming. So, the weekend was spent at Crate & Barrel, Williams Sonoma, Restoration Hardware and Target. It was more involved than I would have thought, I mean how hard can it be to create a wishlist?

Crate & Barrel wins for the best registration gift, we got some heart shaped champagne glasses, they won't get a lot of use in our house, but the thought was nice.

Along with the registration we spent hours pouring over seed and plant catalogs, finding beautiful things to place around the property. Jim is currently having an infatuation with columbine and Peter remains all about the miniature farm animals.

We had a sleepover guest Friday and Saturday which added to our tiredness, Butters best friend Janie, a Jack Russell mix spent the weekend and boy does she have energy. We spent a couple of hours at the big off leash dog park today and while Butters was content to come home and head to bed, Janie was still ready to go.

This is a big week, house inspection and returning the final paperwork on the approved offer. It also is a big travel week, so paperwork will have to go back and forth from California. But something has to pay for the house.

We were going to order the bunbury bags from ll bean this weekend, but thought it may jinx things. so that is put off for a couple weeks.

Welcome

We thought that there would be no better time to dedicate to a blog then when everything in our lives was about to change. This way, gentle reader, you are able to share in the journey.

Peter and Jim were engaged last fall while on a trip to The Breakers in Palm Beach. With the moon beaming down at Bethesda by the Sea church we committed to sharing our life. The plan is to travel to Vermont in mid-May to seal the deal.

As we decided to join our lives, we also had to find a place to join our households. Peter brings his 3 cats, Stanley, Whea and the Bean, while Jim has Frank the cat and Butters, a midsized mongrel who behaves like a drunken, clumsy college girl. We wanted room, character and a bit of earth. After a lot of driving around, found a small horse farm in a part of Minnesota so rural it does not have a post office and put in a bid.

The offer was accepted yesterday and provided everything continues forward we will be moving in the beginning of May. Of course we will maintain separate residences until we are married, I mean we were raised properly after all.

The purpose of this blog is to follow the trials and tribulations of married life, home ownership, decorating and remodeling, animal husbandry (Peter has his heart set on miniature donkeys) and gardening. If along the way Martha Stewart wants to do a photo spread and J Crew wants to outfit us, I am sure we could work things out.

The Bunbury name comes from Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest. Bunburying is about making choices on your terms and being engaged in your own life.

We think that sums things up.

Welcome to Bunbury Farm.